Richard Claus is a bilingual IT Pro Advisor working for Microsoft Canada. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, Rick will be focused on engaging “the IT Pro community” by establishing relationships and giving support to various IT Pro focused initiatives. He is very excited to have this opportunity to reach out and share his passion for Microsoft technology with the Canadian IT Professional community.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Rick most recently worked as an Enterprise Architect. His previous design experience includes Active Directory implementations and migrations, highly available Exchange messaging solutions, and overall systems management using SMS 2003. Besides design and consulting work, Rick brings over 14 years of IT experience, ranging from front line “in the trenches” admin duties, to training / mentoring / facilitating individuals and teams on how to use Microsoft technologies more effectively in their organizations.

Rick is an integral part of the Microsoft team which drives awareness, education and training through special events. In addition to planning and delivering these events, his group directly engages with Canada’s professional communities, including IT managers, infrastructure specialists and architects, systems integrators, independent software vendors (ISVs) and community leaders.

Rick has his hands full on the home front. He helps his wife Kelli raise their 7 year old son and 5 year old twin girls. That being said, there isn’t much time left for any other leisure activities! Before having kids, he used to enjoy getting down and dirty with his off-road mountain bike while training for multi stage Adventure Races, or just playing in the dirt. Nowadays his biking has been limited to office commutes on designated bike paths or going for adventures while towing a bike trailer or two.